Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale
 
 
Start reading Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale [Hardcover]

Catherine Orenstein
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £8.83  
Hardcover --  
Paperback £11.63  
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books (12 Aug 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0465041256
  • ISBN-13: 978-0465041251
  • Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.7 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 984,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Catherine Orenstein
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Visit Amazon's Catherine Orenstein Page

Product Description

Product Description

A young scholar goes to Grandmother's house--and beyond--to uncover the surprisingly complex and contradictory morals we've learned from this seemingly simple folk tale. In Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked Catherine Orenstein reveals for the first time the intricate sexual politics, moral ambiguities and philosophical underpinnings of Red Riding Hood's epic journey to Grandmother's house--and how, from the nursery on, the story influences our view of the world. Beginning with its first publication as a cautionary tale on the perils of seduction, written in reaction to the licentiousness of the court of Louis XIV, Orenstein traces the many and various lives the tale has lived since then, from its appearance in modern advertisements for cosmetics and automobiles to the inspiration it brought to poets like Anne Sexton and its starring role in pornographic films. In Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, Red appears as seductress, hapless victim, riot grrrrl, femme fatale, and even she-wolf, as Orenstein shows how, through centuries of different guises, the story has served as a barometer of social and sexual mores pertaining to women. Full of fascinating history, generous wit, and intelligent analysis, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked proves that the story of one young girl's trip through the woods continues to be one of our most compelling modern myths.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
Once upon a time there was a little village girl, the prettiest anyone ever saw. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(3)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly remarkable review of the history of red riding hood, 14 May 2009
By 
P. Pieters (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (Hardcover)
Catherine Orenstein gives a truly remarkable review of the history of red riding hood. Starting with the version of Perault, she moves on to the brothers Grimm, only to go back to the oral history before Perault. Then she evaluates the function of the story in different settings and times, giving original and eye-opening opinions.

What do you think of her vision of the various Prince Charmings: necrophilic pedophiles. Pointing out that the prince of Snowwhite falls in love with her after she died and wants to share his life with a corpse, and the prince of Sleeping Beauty falls in love with her comatose body lying in a death-like state. Both ladies underaged.

An other interesting vision is her disagrement with feministes that red riding hood was raped. Yes in our perspective she is. The wolf is a sexual active male as Perault point out and Orenstein confirms with several examples. But rape didn't exist in the days of Perault. It was the father of the girl who was robbed of the chance to arrange a marriage for his daughter and make some fortune out of it.

The book is written with great insight and also humor. Highly recommended!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Red Hot, 17 Jan 2008
By 
L. Clark (Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a really interesting exploration of the popular fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. It follows the evolution of the tale from Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood, to Carter's Company of Wolves and the film Freeway starring Reese Witherspoon. It shows just how much of an impact this one tale has had on our society and is entertaining and easy to read. It is a good starting point for anyone wishing to study the origins and development of Red Riding Hood or just someone wanting to learn more about it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


4.0 out of 5 stars The Varied World of Red Riding Hood, 10 Jun 2011
I have just finished reading this and I have to say it was an enjoyable and interesting mix. Mostly I could not put it down though there were rare points when I thought the author was really grasping at straws and getting too sidetracked in her point. It covers most versions of Little Red Riding Hood from the early stories- The Grandmother's Tale, Perrault's Le Petit Chaperon Rogue, the Grimm's Little Red Cap- the more adult versions by Tanith Lee and Angela Carter amongst others, several poems based of the fairytale, films- Freeway, The Company of Wolves- and adverts.

It analyses each one divided into topics including Red as a victim, a sex symbol and indeed even a villain and the wolf as a villain and a cross dresser bringing up interesting points about both characters and how the story has developed over the years turning Red from a disobedient child of warning to a brazen sex symbol who wanted the wolf to come to her or was more than capable of dealing with him.

There were many opinions and topics offered in this book, some I had never heard of or considered before, which offered for an enthralling read but there were times when I felt it could have offered more on some topics and less on others for example, when it came to The Company of Wolves and the short stories by Angela Carter it was based on I was really looking forward in the author plunging into the film, really analysing it and going into depth about the three stories, as it was both topics were mentioned by only for a couple of paragraphs, equally Tanith Lee's short story Wolfland was only loosely covered. Whereas the idea of Red Riding Hood and other fairytale heroines as fetish symbols had an entire chapter dedicated to it, which was interesting but filled more on how it was fairytales in general rather than just dealing with Red Riding Hood herself.

Overall it is a good book and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this fairytale which has changed so much over the years, it is a tough topic to write about as there are so many different interpretations of it and there have been so many adaptations and usage of the characters that it's impossible to note and analyse every one of them and Catherine Orenstein has definitely done an admirable job with this.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
 Go to Amazon.com to see all 22 reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars 
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject


Feedback